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How was the moon sighting of Eid ul-Fitr 1440/2019 verified?


Many people have asked me to provide more details behind why the leadership of Hizb ut Tahrir verified the moon sighting and declared that Eid will be today (Tuesday). I contacted the head of the media office and received a clarification. But before listing the specific eyewitness accounts, I would like to point out something very important first:

Anyone who has been paying attention to what has been going on in the media over the past two weeks might have noticed that there was a major campaign from calculation committees to push the agenda of converting the Ummah from starting and ending the month by sighting with the eye to using calculations instead. They confidently claimed that, according to their very reliable calculations, it would be impossible to see the moon on Monday, and that Eid would undoubtedly be on Wednesday. So you can imagine their embarrassment when dozens of sightings were made all around the world on Monday. This is why we saw all these sighting-by-calculation committees go on a massive online campaign in an attempt to save face and try to discredit all the eyewitness sightings.

It is one thing if there was only a random sighting somewhere, but we are talking about dozens of confirmed and verified sightings in multiple countries.

The sad and unfortunate thing is that so many Muslims believed these committees and joined in the witch hunt of attacking those reliable individuals who witnessed the moon with their own eyes. Some people took this as an opportunity to attack the Hizb and claim that the Hizb was biased to certain countries or has some sort of malicious agenda. I have even seen some of the eyewitnesses face vicious attacks online, being accused of being liars or hypocrites, and having some sort of a malicious agenda.

But Islam teaches us to trust the witness of a trustworthy Muslim, not the calculations of the British or US Navy.

Sadly, everyone who was attacking the eyewitnesses somehow became expert in astronomy overnight, despite having little to no understanding of how unreliable these moon-sighting charts can be.

The lesson for us to learn this year is not about the difference of opinion itself, rather it is about being aware of what is going on around us and knowing how to prioritize who to trust in such situations.

Those who attacked the eyewitness accounts simply fell for the media campaign of those who are pushing the agenda of trying to change the Muslim standard from sighting the moon with the eye to going by calculation instead.

As for the eyewitness accounts themselves, below is a list of verified sightings from various parts of the world, including a video from one of the eye witnesses themselves:

– Video from the eyewitness himself in Saudi, along with 4 witnesses with him:…/videos/2433861906677723/

– Confirmed sighting in Yemen:…

– Post by the eyewitness himself in Palestine, note the vicious attacks against him in the comments:

– Multiple confirmed sightings in Pakistan:…/480254-eid-ul-fitr-moon-sighte…


May Allah increase our wisdom in these trying times, and teach us what we need to know in order to trust those deserving of our trust.